[Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

[James Hare]

The problem with advertising on Wikipedia is that it presents a conflict
with our real mission: to provide neutral information to the peoples. In
contrast, the goal of advertising is to feed one-sided information to people
in a very flashy way. Showing only half the picture is what leads to
conflict: people think Americans are ignorant pigdogs when there are some
very intelligent Americans. Keyword-based ads would be terrible in this
sense: in an article about fertilizers, if there is a Miracle-Gro ad, it is
giving them unfairly better representation.

Now, we could counter this by linking to the relevant Wikipedia article
-next- to the advertisment. What if something non-notable were to be
advertised? Then there would be no article...

On 1/5/07, Teun Spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anthony,
>
> what, according to you, is the place to speak up?
>
> I have considered this mailinglist as the place to speak up, anywhere
> else?
>
> teun
>
> On 1/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 1/5/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hoi,
> > > I want to point out to all, that it says to provide the information
> for
> > > free in perpetuity. It does not say anything at all about
> > > advertisements, sponsorships or whatever.
> >
> > Yep, it sure doesn't.
> >
> > IOW, if you object to there ever being ads on Wikipedia, now is the
> > time to speak up, before the mission statement is adopted.
> >
> > Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
> >
> > Anthony
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
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